


Not a Perfect Soldier, but a Good Man

by lodgedinmythoughts



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Humanizing Steve, Museums, Smithsonian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23660284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodgedinmythoughts/pseuds/lodgedinmythoughts
Summary: Where Steve visits his own museum exhibit, and you sit with him.
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Reader, Steve Rogers/Reader
Comments: 12
Kudos: 98





	Not a Perfect Soldier, but a Good Man

**Author's Note:**

> This came about a couple of ways. The shorter one is that I wanted to write about the line from AoU where Ultron says Steve's pretending he can live without a war. The other one is that I was watching a video essay about the bad boy trope a while back and it got me thinking. I love my fictional bad boys, but the thing I truly love about Steve and others like him is that at the end of the day, they're good men. Fantasies of bad boys are fun and no doubt I'll continue to indulge in them, but it's not them I'd marry in a heartbeat is all I'm saying. ;) That's just me and my personal feelings. So in the spirit of that, I was overcome with a need to show a tiny form of appreciation for Steve and one of the reasons I think a lot of us love him so much--his good heart.

“Hello, Grant.”

Steve’s blue eyes flick up, barely visible beneath the brim of his baseball cap. Though well-hidden, there’s a perpetual sadness there that tends to produce an aching spot somewhere in your chest when you really think about it, which is why you sometimes choose not to.

Despite his reticence, it’s easy enough to sense the inner world that feeds his turmoil. The inner world that everyone has, though it might manifest in different ways, if at all. He’s good at masking that inner world, you’ve found. Good at compartmentalizing. He’s not what most would call someone who wears his heart on his sleeve, but when he does emote, the conviction and earnest quality with which he does it makes it all the more potent. There’s no artifice to him. He is who he is without guile or apology.

And yet when you find yourself thinking of Steve, you think of a man who feels more than anyone. Maybe it’s circumstance, maybe it’s innate. To you, both would make just as much sense. He is, after all, evidently someone who visits his own Smithsonian exhibit just to sit on the bench and watch the visitors pass through, though most of them are gone at this hour.

The corner of his lips twitch in mild amusement. “Grant?”

You lower yourself beside him on the bench. “I didn’t want to risk saying your name out loud. There aren’t many people here, but you never know who might be listening.”

“What are you doing here?”

“More like what are you doing here? Is it commonplace for people to visit their own exhibits where you’re from or something?”

He smiles a little more easily at that, and the tension gradually dissipates from your shoulders accordingly.

“But really, what are you doing here?” you ask. “If you’re itching that much to take pictures with your flock of admirers, you could’ve just called Lang.”

He chuckles, though it’s tinged with something sad. “I’m sure he’s gotten over the novelty by now.”

He fiddles with something in his hand, and neither of you speaks for a long stretch. Staring back at you from the opposite wall is a floor-to-ceiling likeness of the one sitting next to you, showcasing Captain America in all his star-spangled glory, more myth than man. Encased in the exhibit like this, it’s easy to see why he and the others are prone to deification.

The Avengers are gods. That’s what much of the world would like to believe. Other camps, not so much. Then there are those who are indifferent or see them as commodities, things on which to stake money or predict their next slip-up. To most they appear untouchable, even if they’re not quite invincible, and for the average citizen, they remain far out of reach.

“You know, I see all sorts of people pass through the exhibit,” he says. “Old, young, male, female, every other walk of life you can think of.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. The Smithsonian must get thousands of visits a day.”

But you know what he means. That the people who walk through these doors run the whole gamut. All who pass through could be linked together by nothing but some degree of interest in a figure who’s larger than life, one who’s deemed important enough to have an exhibit dedicated entirely to him.

The notion of celebrity has never sat well with Steve, you know that much. At least, not when it’s centered around him. It wasn’t the renown he’d had in mind when he agreed to take the serum all those decades ago.

“Some of the things I hear…they’re pretty nice.” His half-smile turns wistful.

“What, do they stroke your ego by talking about how incredibly handsome you are?”

“No, like how a little girl wants to grow up to be Captain America someday. Or how a guy who reminds me of how I used to be stays behind to look at an old picture of me. It makes me wonder what he must be thinking.” He looks at you. “You really think I’m handsome?”

You laugh, and his lips turns up in a genuine smile. “I think you’re ridiculous is what you are,” you say.

“Yeah, I think that a lot, too.” His tone has turned more subdued now.

“Hey.” You nudge him gently. “You okay?”

He’s hunched over with elbows resting on his thighs, eyes cast out ahead. “How heavy a conversation are you in the mood for right now?”

“What?”

“Just thought I’d…” He glances at your face, then looks away, shaking his head. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“It’s nothing. Forget it.”

“Steve, come on,” you say gently. “What is it?”

He’s still not looking at you, and the silence grows increasingly uncomfortable. You don’t want to pry and are just about to change the subject when he asks, “You think I can live without a war?”

You have no idea what to say to that, so you settle on an eloquent “Huh?”

“You think I’m just fooling myself? With everything?”

“Sorry, I think I’m a little lost…” you say, almost like he’s a wild animal and you’re trying to coax him down. But you’re struck with a sudden need that surprises you with the force of it, and it’s a need for him to keep going, not to stop, and you have to convey that you’re interested and willing to talk. “Could you help me out with the specifics, maybe?”

His cheek tics like he’s chewing on the inside of it. “Back when we had to deal with Ultron…he said something to me, and…I don’t know, it stuck. He said I was only pretending I could live without a war. Most of the time, I think he must’ve been right. Think I knew it all along.”

“Do you really?” Your voice is soft, almost negligible even amid the growing quiet as the remaining visitors start to peter out.

“You know, I was a company man for so long I think I forgot how to be anything else. But then, it wasn’t really that long after all. It just felt like it.”

“You know,” you begin carefully, “for what it’s worth, I think you were the best non-company company man out there.”

He looks at you in question.

“You may have been employed by S.H.I.E.L.D., but you’ve always marched to the beat of your own drum, I’ve always thought,” you continue. “The idea of you started out as a tool of propaganda.”

“A dancing monkey.”

“And you shut that down real quick. And sure, who knows if all the people who come here don’t actually see you for who you are and still buy into the propaganda, but I’m willing to bet a good percentage of them do. Get you, I mean. Get what you stand for.” However possible it is to get someone without actually knowing them. “I think all sorts of people come here because you represent something bigger. And maybe that’s why you’ve got little girls who want to grow up to be like you, and people from all over who look all sorts of ways who see a little of themselves in you, or they see something they can aspire to.”

“I didn’t get in this to be a role model. I’m not perfect.”

“No one expects you to be.”

“Some people do.”

“Well, then I’d like to see them be perfect, too. And didn’t you sign up to fight for the little guy?”

He shakes his head. “Regardless, sometimes I just feel like I’m playing the long con on everyone, most of all myself. Think I’m just clinging to battle ’cause it’s all I know. ’Cause it’s all that keeps me sane.”

You have no idea what to say to that, so you don’t.

“And sometimes I don’t even do a good job at that,” he says.

“At what?”

“Being a soldier. You say I march to the beat of my own drum, but for a long time, there was nothing I wanted more than to fall back in line and follow orders. But that was just ’cause it was familiar, and I was still getting used to the fact that I had to live in a world that was anything but.”

“You don’t have to be the perfect soldier. Even so, none of us is ever just one thing. And you know, Steve, I think some allowances can be made in your situation. It’s not every day someone’s thrust into a new century. And at the risk of sounding patronizing, and seriously, tell me if I am…” He manages to look somewhat amused at that. “I think you know yourself better than you think. And that you’ll be okay.”

He remains quiet, still fiddling with the object in his hand.

“Sorry,” you say. “I don’t mean to make you feel psychoanalyzed or anything. And in any case, I’m the least qualified person to do so.”

“It’s all right. I asked for it.”

“Ma’am, sir, I’m afraid the museum is closing up now.”

You look up to find a security guard standing over you with his hand perched comfortably on his walkie-talkie. Steve hardly looks up, remaining hidden beneath his cap.

“Oh, right, sorry. We’ll be right out,” you tell the guard. He leaves, and then you stand.

“Hey.” Still sitting, Steve holds out his hand, the one that’s closed over the unseen object.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a gift. Go ahead.”

“A gift?”

He beckons for you to take it. When you do, you find nestled in your palm a tiny action figure of Captain America, shield at the ready.

“Found it on the floor. Someone must’ve dropped it,” Steve says. “Maybe you can go on your own mission to find them, or maybe you can pay it forward, give it to another kid.”

“Who says it had to have been a kid’s?”

He shoots you a look. “You know what I mean.”

A smile burgeons on your lips. “You know, whoever dropped it might come back looking for it later. Who knew the honorable Captain America condoned stealing?”

“Like I said, I’m not perfect. And it’s safe to say it would’ve been gone by tomorrow whether I picked it up or not. Do whatever you want with it. In the meantime, I’ll be grabbing some dinner for myself.”

He stands, and it’s not until you look up from the action figure that you realize how close he is. The warmth from his body touches your skin, and his focus is entirely on you.

“Or we can make it for two. My treat,” he says, eyes unwavering as they stare into yours.

You resist the urge to step back and look right back. “Only if you make that a promise. Maybe we can even find someone whose day will be made by receiving a Captain America action figure from the man himself.”

The corner of his mouth tugs into a small smile, and somehow, this one hits differently from all the others.

“Sounds like we got a deal.”


End file.
